Commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,383,321; 6,196,392; and 5,393,366, the disclosures which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, disclose tabbing machines that apply a tab onto an article from a web of material having labels or tabs releasably secured on the web. In these tabbing machines, a tab (or label as they are sometimes referred) is dispensed onto an article such as a flat, planar article (e.g., an envelope) using apparatus that includes a tabber housing and a conveyor supported by the tabber housing and configured to advance the article to be tabbed along a predetermined path of travel. A tab dispenser is supported by the tabber housing and positioned above the path of travel and configured to dispense a tab from the web of material onto the article as it passes under the tab dispenser. The web of material can be formed such as a release paper that releasably secures a tab thereon. The web of material passes around a roller or sharp member and the tab or label is stripped from the web of material (e.g., release paper) in one non-limiting example.
In some prior art tabbing machines, after tabs have been released from the web of material and applied to articles, the web is taken up by a rewind roll mounted on the tabbing machine, which must be periodically changed after the rewind roll is filled with the scrap web material. The operator typically stops the tabbing machine, replaces the rewind roll with a new rewind roll, threads the leading edge of the web of material, e.g., release paper onto the new rewind roll, and starts the process again. This process is repeated as long as the tabbing machine is operating at a production run and new rewind rolls have to be inserted because older remind rolls are filled with scrap web material.